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The cold world of skimo & alpine climbing

Sunday, February 6, 2011

New Beal rope!

I am a big fan of Beal ropes. And I have climbed on just about every rope made. When I pay my own money for a rope I want the best made for my own use. Lots of decision making goes into the process of deciding, "what rope". Beal most closely matches my own thoughts on ropes. I generally climb on either the Ice Twins or the Joker given a choice if it is a serious climb for me.

I got this press release from Beal via email this morning. I have not seen or felt the new rope but always expect great things from Beal. It would seem they have delivered something special from the video.

Craig has left a new comment on your post "New Beal rope!

"This process was used with the Wallmaster rope and an low stretch called the Access. Both rope's suffered from the glue, which bonds the inner and outer of the rope together, dissolving when wet and leaving the rope lumpy. I've first had experience with this as I got a Wallmaster rope wet and found it really awful to use."

I obviously need some more info from Beal...but we are talking about an indoor specific rope, the "Wallmaster" and an outdoor rope the "Diablo" here.

Thank you Matt, for pointing out the original confusion between the indoor (Wallmaster) and out door (Diablo) ropes.

Beal's speil:
"We are happy to introduce you the latest BEAL rope, diablo 10.2mm Unicore, which wins an ISPO Award. This dynamic rope is the first outdoor BEAL rope made using the BEAL Unicore Process. Only used with semi static ropes until this year, the Unicore technology is now available on BEAL DIABLO 10.2 mm outdoor dynamic ropes. Thanks to this BEAL technology, which sufficiently binds the sheath and the core of the rope, durability is markedly improved while the rope remains supple and easy to use. Application of Unicore technology results in an astonishing new rope construction. It sufficiently binds the sheath to the core of the rope, radically decreasing the occurrence of slippage while keeping the rope very compact. The DIABLO rope is supple, easy to use and is extremely durable."

Just released video on The DIABLO rope...

This is NOT a GOOD sign! Old video to lauch a new product?

A quick Internet search for the old Wall Master rope turns up this! "Wall Master Rope-English"

Beal's answer 2/10/2011 and my question previous:

Hi Dane,

I understand it is a bit confusing...

To be precise, the Diablo uses the Unicore Process technology, the same as the Wallmaster and the Acces. But we went forward in the development of this technology and we achieve to have a better rope than the Wallmaster, dedicated to indoor but also outdoor climbing. When you use this 10.2mm rope, you fell like using a 9.8mm rope... we just come back from ISPO when we got an Award, and visitors, climbers and journalists were very impressed by this new product. (at least one journalist -me- that is not impressed at this point)

To be clearer, we changed the video on Youtube. Please could you change the link on your blog ? Here is the new and good video :

I are preparing a more precise press release for next week and we will tell you more about the availability of this rope in the coming weeks. Thanks for your question and your support.

All the best,

pierre-emmanuel

Le 6 févr. 2011 à 17:30, rdburns@cnw.com a écrit :

Greetings Pierre-Emmanuel,

Could you briefly explain the difference between the new Diablo and the past Beal Wallmaster and Access ropes that were such disappoointments?

Using the old Wallmaster rope video is not encouraging with the newest Diablo release.

One of my audience caught that error with in literally seconds of my posting your press release. That never bodes well.

7 comments:

craig
said...

This process was used with the Wallmaster rope and an low stretch called the access.Both rope's suffered from the glue, which bonds the inner and outer of the rope together, dissolving when wet and leaving the rope lumpy.I've first had experience with this as I got a wallmaster rope wet and found it really awful to use.

No problem,I'm hoping that Beal may have sorted the problem out because the concept is amazing. The test are impressive and this extra security from a damaged sheath would be a great bit of piece of mind...Keep up the amazing work with your blog, I think I check it about 5 times a day for updates and your great reviews.

I think you're being a bit hasty/harsh here. Beal's Wallmaster, Wallschool etc were pretty clearly designed as indoor ropes. An environment where they'll NEVER get wet. Saying they have issues when wet is a bit misleading at this point. The Diablo info even says it's their 1st outdoor rope. Second, the video is showing the benefits of the Unicore design. Who cares if the model is a Wallschool or Diablo? The benefit is the same regardless.

overall, I think you're jumping on them before the product has even been released. Seems a bit hasty.

Looking for a video that shows the Beal Diablo 10.2 Unicore getting cut?Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL_1ZUCmqP8&feature=g-upl

Also, Beal has fine tuned the Unicore so that it is now compatible with their Golden Dry Ropes. This means that Unicore ropes can get wet and nothing will happen in regards to it getting "lumpy" as your blog post mentions. So in 2013, there will be a handful of ropes with UNICORE, including the Ice Line and Joker.

Looks like you've had some experience with the Wall Master in the past. Prior to you have a bad experience with the rope getting wet and it's having lumping issues, what did you think of the rope? I'm having trouble finding reviews online. We ordered one recently and it seems alright. When the rope is weighted though there are these slight protrusions, little sheath bumps, and I'm curious if that should be a concern for sheath wear over time. Thoughts on? thanks.